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Encore performance

While rule changes were the impetus for the NHL’s Research, Development and Orientation Camp, it quickly became apparent in Year 2 of the experiment that prospects held the interest of the assembled scouts and GMs. Pitting 36 of the top 2012 kids against each other in the middle of summer brought fire to the event and gave an excellent preview of the season to come. With an emphasis on the R&D camp, here’s a look at some of the players we’re excited to see in the NHL one day.

Steven Fogarty, C – Penticton Vees (BCHL)

As a member of the Edina Hornets in Minnesota, Fogarty was a key member of one of the best high school teams in the state last season. He already has a state title to his credit from 2010, but learned just as much when his team came up short last year.

“The hardest thing to do in sports is defend and repeat,” Fogarty said. “We had the target on our backs all season and we learned to battle through adversity. I learned so much at Edina and it was a privilege playing there.”

After a season in Penticton, Fogarty will turn his attention to South Bend, where he’ll suit up for a Notre Dame Fighting Irish program that’s been one of the nation’s best recently.

“I wanted a balance between academics and athletics,” he said. “If hockey doesn’t work out, I have a degree to fall back on and Notre Dame is the perfect place for that.”

Fogarty has a great frame at 6-foot-2, 194 pounds and uses it to create offense. He led the Hornets with 23 goals and 40 points in 24 games last season.

“I’m a team player, I use my teammates,” he said. “But I feel I’m a goal-scorer. I generate offense, that’s my main role.”

The Vees will have an incredible seven players from Minnesota on their roster this season, including Wild second-rounder Mario Lucia. Fogarty will feel right at home. Drafted 72nd overall by the New York Rangers in 2011.

Zemgus Girgensons, C – Dubuque Fighting Saints (USHL)

Fighting Saints coach Jim Montgomery has lauded his Latvian star in the past for his Jonathan Toews-esque drive and seeing Girgensons in the flesh leads me to believe him. Always involved in the play, Girgensons is strong on his skates and gets physical out there. Having his Latvian squad at the top level of world junior play this winter will be a big showcase for him. Draft eligible in 2012.

Matt Dumba, D – Red Deer Rebels (WHL)

We already know this will be a great year for defensemen and Dumba is part of the elite crop. He’s got a game made for TV, with bone-crushing hits headlining the skills package. Dumba is also a fluid skater who makes a lot of offense happen from the point and isn’t afraid to rush the puck. Draft eligible in 2012.

Ryan Murray, D – Everett Silvertips (WHL)

Right now, Murray is the top defenseman available in 2012 and depending on how forwards Nail Yakupov (also excellent at the R&D Camp) and Mikhail Grigorenko (joining the Quebec League) fare, it’s not crazy to see Murray going No. 1 overall. Not only does he make excellent decisions with the puck, but he can also disarm and flatten forecheckers. Draft eligible in 2012.

Matia Marcantuoni, C – Kitchener Rangers (OHL)

Marcantuoni is known for his blazing speed, but my biggest takeaway from his play at the R&D Camp is how he uses his skating for more than just offense. In essentially an All-Star Game, Marcantuoni was a dogged defensive presence, using his speed to give the puck carrier fits. Draft eligible in 2012.

Jarrod Maidens, C – Owen Sound Attack (OHL)

Even though he wasn’t a go-to guy at the time, Maidens’ experience from helping Owen Sound to the Ontario League title last year clearly gave him confidence. At 6-foot-2, Maidens has imposing size and used it to his advantage at the R&D Camp, establishing territory and giving himself room to make some very slick plays that cashed in goals. Draft eligible in 2012.

Raphael Bussieres, LW – Baie-Comeau Drakkar (QMJHL)

The second-leading scorer on a bad Drakkar team last year, Bussieres will get plenty of opportunities to produce this season and he’s got the makeup to do it. Big, fast and aggressive, the left winger was both a threat and a thorn in the side of his R&D competition. Draft eligible in 2012.

Collin Olson, G – U.S. NTDP (USHL)

The R&D Camp can be a cruel place for goaltenders thanks to the offensive talent on display (not to mention rule changes often designed to create goals), but Olson showed all the trademarks of the modern elite goalie. The Minnesota native is 6-foot-3, 205 pounds, stays composed in his crease and has a nice glove hand on top of it all. Olson is committed to Ohio State for 2012-13. Draft eligible in 2012.

Nick Ebert, D – Windsor Spitfires (OHL)

You get a sense of it from his head shot, but when you see Ebert in person, you realize just how thick his frame is. Using that mass to exert force, Ebert can be a nasty customer out there and doesn’t appreciate players getting near his goalie. Of course, with 41 points in 64 games last year, the New Jersey native also brings offense to town, too. Draft eligible in 2012.

Jonathan Drouin, C – Lac St-Louis Lions (Quebec Midget)

The second overall pick in the Quebec League draft, Drouin is currently planning on playing another year of midget instead of making the jump to the Halifax Mooseheads. Tremendously skilled, Drouin also has the United States League as an option, so his whereabouts will be an intriguing subplot this season. Draft eligible in 2013.

The Hot List, a roundup of minor league, junior, college and high school players we’re excited to one day see in the NHL, appears every Tuesday only on thehockeynews.com. A player is eligible for The Hot List until they play in their first NHL game.

For more great prospect profiles and news and views from the world of hockey, Subscribe to The Hockey News magazine.

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The Rangers started the season as one of the league’s hottest teams, but have come back down to earth lately. Getting back on track will be a bit harder without the services of Rick Nash for the next week.

Another year, another ailment for Rick Nash, but luckily for the New York Rangers winger this one won’t be keeping him out of the lineup long-term.

Nash, 32, was forced to the leave the Rangers’ loss to the New York Islanders early on Tuesday, suffering a lower-body ailment that put him out of the game, and an MRI on Wednesday revealed that Nash will be sidelined for somewhere in the neighborhood of one week due to a groin injury.

Considering Nash was forced out of action due to the injury, that he’ll miss only one week is about as good as the news could be. Most Rangers fans would have thought the worst when Nash was forced to leave the game, especially given he missed nearly a quarter of the 2015-16 campaign due to a knee injury.

Being out for a week would force Nash, currently third on the Rangers in scoring behind J.T. Miller and Kevin Hayes with 18 points, to miss anywhere from four to six games, depending when he’s feeling fit to return to action. Only one of those games are divisional games, which is a slight bonus, but the set of games against the Chicago Blackhawks is certainly a pair the Rangers could use Nash for, and getting by the New Jersey Devils and Winnipeg Jets without Nash in the lineup is going to require someone else stepping up.

Nash is in the midst of quite the bounce back season, too. While it may be a far cry from his remarkable 2014-15 campaign in which he scored a career-best 42 goals to go along with 69 points, Nash has already potted 11 goals this season and, prior to his injury, was on pace for another 30-goal campaign.

Even if Nash reaches the 20-goal mark this season, though, it would be a step up from his past campaign. He managed only 15 goals and 36 points in 2015-16, making for the lowest full-season goal total of his career.

Nash isn’t the only injury concern for the Rangers right now, however. New York will also be without Matt Puempel for the foreseeable future due to a concussion and Mika Zibanejad’s broken fibula will likely keep him out of action for at least another month, if not more.

The Rangers, who started the season as one of the league’s hottest teams, are just 4-5-1 in their past 10 games.

Jets’ Scheifele set to return after missing three straight with hamstring issue

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Jets’ Scheifele set to return after missing three straight with hamstring issue

The Winnipeg Jets aren’t completely healthy yet, but a major piece is back in the lineup Thursday as Mark Scheifele returns from injury. Scheifele, the Jets leading scorer, has missed the past three games due to a hamstring issue.

The Winnipeg Jets have been on a roll of late and their chances of pushing themselves out of a wild card spot and into a divisional slot are going to get a big help Thursday night with the return of Mark Scheifele to the lineup.

Scheifele, 23, has missed the past three games with a lower-body injury, and Scheifele said Thursday that the issue had to do with his hamstring, according to the Winnipeg Sun’s Ken Wiebe. The worst part about the injury, Scheifele said, was that he kept thinking he was going to be able to suit up only to be forced out of the lineup.

“It was an up in the air thing, and every morning you’re anxious to see how you’re going to feel. It was definitely tough mentally,” Scheifele said. “Today when I woke up and got on the ice I felt fine, continued to skate and it got better and better. I’m definitely very happy.”

The Jets get Scheifele back just as they’re about to enter a home tilt against the New York Rangers. If Winnipeg can pick up two points, they’ll move from the second wild card spot in the Western Conference into third place in the Central Division, leapfrogging the inactive Wild. That said, the Wild will have five games in hand on the Jets.

While much of the talk this season has (rightfully) been about the play of rookie Patrik Laine, Scheifele is putting together the best season of his young career and continuing the hot run of play that he had to closed out the past campaign. Through the first 26 games of the campaign, Scheifele had posted 13 goals and 13 assists, paced the Jets with 26 points and his point per game pace is far and away the best of his career. If he continues scoring at this rate, he could end the year with a 40-goal, 80-point campaign.

The timing for the career year is perfect for Scheifele, too. Winnipeg can be a tough market, but since signing his sizeable eight-year, $49-million extension in the off-season, everything — sans the injury, of course — has been coming up Scheifele.

With his return to the lineup, one of the coach Paul Maurice’s recent experiments will come to an end as winger Blake Wheeler will move out of the middle and back to his normal spot on the top line. Maurice had been running the Jets captain as a center in Scheifele’s absence, but he’ll now be skating alongside Scheifele in his usual spot.

The healthy return of Scheifele also marks a sign of some players coming off the injured list for the Jets, too. There’s still a way to go before the team is completely healthy, though. Tyler Myers, Shawn Matthias, Joel Armia and Nic Petan all remain on the injured reserve.

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ECHL defenseman Anthony Calabrese is “lucky to be alive” after a “careless, reckless” hit, and Tyler Murovich, who delivered the blow, has been given a 12-game suspension as a first-time offender.

There are few plays scarier than seeing a player hit from behind and sent headfirst into the boards. That kind of play is made that much harder to watch when knowing the severity of the injury suffered.

During an ECHL contest on Nov. 24 between the Norfolk Admirals and Atlanta Gladiators, ECHL veteran Tyler Murovich delivered an incredibly dangerous shove to the back of Anthony Calabrese, a 24-year-old defenseman who’s only 12 games into his ECHL career.

The result of the hit was frightening. Calabrese was left laying face down on the ice, near motionless. The Admirals rearguard would eventually be placed on a stretcher, taken from the ice and transported to hospital.

That may seem harsh to some given that Murovich is a first-time offender, but given the severity of Calabrese’s injury, it actually seems like a somewhat light punishment.

As a result of the hit, Calabrese suffered broken C7 and T1 vertebrae. In simpler terms, he broke both his neck and his back. Oh, and he also punctured his lung. In fact, Calabrese told The Virginian-Pilot’s Jim Hodges that doctors told the young center that he’s “lucky to be alive.”

“It was a miracle, and they say I’m going to make a full recovery,” Calabrese told Hodges. “It’s going to be a long road, but I’d rather be alive than be in a wheelchair the rest of my life.”

What helped Calabrese escape with his life, he told Hodges, was advice he had gotten early in his career from a high school coach. Calabrese was taught that if he was ever going into the boards head first to lift his chin and turn to the side in an attempt to avoid taking the brunt of the impact with the top of his head.

“That’s honestly the only thing that registered in my mind when I was going in: at the last minute, pick my head up,” Calabrese told Hodges. “I remember picking my head up and turning it to the right.”

Thankfully, doctors told Calabrese that he can eventually return to the ice and that the injuries suffered from the hit won’t cost him his career. His spinal cord, he told Hodges, wasn’t damaged due to the hit. And, as hard as it may be to believe, doctors said it was the “best possible break” in a situation such as Calabrese’s.

Down Goes Brown: The NHL’s five most confusing players

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Down Goes Brown: The NHL’s five most confusing players

From big off-season acquisitions struggling to oft-maligned players proving their worth, the NHL has its fair share of players who are hard to figure out.

I'm still confused.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the NHL's five most confusing teams, at least from my perspective. These were the teams that I just couldn't figure out. Were they good? Bad? Somewhere in the middle? I'd spent the season trying to work it out, and come up empty.

As it turned out, I wasn't alone. More than a few readers confessed to being confused by those teams too, not to mention several others. It was like having a support group. A support group of confused hockey fans, all watching the games unfold with their heads tilted like a puppy seeing a toilet flush for the first time.

Well, today I'm going to call another meeting of the confused hockey fan network. But this time, we're not looking at teams. No, today we're going to dive into some specific players that have me perplexed. In most of these cases, I thought I had a handle on things. But now I'm not so sure.

Maybe you can help me out. Or maybe you're just as confused as I am. Either way, I think it will be good for my soul to admit that I just can't figure these guys out.

Brian Elliott

What I thought I knew: After an up-and-down start to this NHL career, Elliott had settled in to a predictable pattern with the Blues. He'd play well. He'd post strong numbers, sometimes even league-leading ones. And then, just when push came to shove, the Blues would lose faith in him and hand the starter's job to someone else. Maybe it was the backup. Maybe it was a pricey trade acquisition. Maybe it was even a semi-retired legend, in a move we'd all agree to just pretend never happened. But time and time again, the Blues had no faith in Elliott.

And I was convinced that they were wrong. This was the classic case of a team over-thinking things, or maybe letting dressing room politics or a faith in intangibles override basic logic. The numbers didn't lie: Elliott was one of the best goalies in the league. And when the Flames nabbed him at a discount in the offseason, I was sure that they'd found their starter.

Where I'm at now: Sitting around wondering what happened. Which is also where Elliott finds himself most games these days.

Chad Johnson has been a great story, and you can't blame the Flames for riding the hot hand. Elliott got off to a bad start, and when you're a young team that hasn't earned a ton of self-confidence quite yet, you can't let yourself fall too far out of the race. The Flames are being smart here.

But… Elliott is still good, right? Every goalie has the occasional slump, so we can't panic over 13 games. Then again, Elliott's never really done much outside of Ken Hitchcock's goalie factory, and the Blues still didn't believe in him. Did they know something that the rest of us, including the Flames, somehow missed?

Bobby Ryan

What I thought I knew: Remember when Ryan was left off of Team USA in 2014, partly because Brian Burke didn't think he could spell "intense"? What a ridiculous snub that was. Hey guys, 30-goal scorers in their prime don't exactly grow on trees.

Well, sure, I imagine Senator fans were already in the loop on this one. But it feels like the rest of us have been slow to realize that Ryan just hasn't been the same player in Ottawa that he was in Anaheim. His best year since the 2013 trade was only 23 goals, and that was back in 2013-14. This year, he has just three goals through 21 games.

In hindsight, maybe we should have seen that coming. Ryan was 26 when the trade went down, and in today's NHL, that's already past the peak of many forwards. But the Senators clearly thought they were getting an elite player with some big seasons left in him – remember, we're just two years removed from them handing him a $50-million contract.

Ryan's had to overcome some tough hurdles in his life, including the loss of his mother this summer. It still feels like he could rebound and reclaim his status as a first-line player. But if not, the budget-conscious Senators may be stuck with an ugly-looking contract that they can't really afford.

Tyler Bozak

What I thought I knew: Any Leaf fan who was paying attention was in on this one. Sure, Bozak had put up some decent stats over the years, but he'd done it as Phil Kessel's sidekick, inexplicably getting all the playing time with Toronto's best player and reaping the rewards. And even then, his numbers had been just OK, never topping 50 points in a season and struggling in his own end.

It was a classic case of a superstar propping up an also-ran. And once Kessel was shipped out of town, we'd see the real Tyler Bozak.

Where I'm at now: Hey, it turns out the real Tyler Bozak is pretty good.

Not "first line center" good. Certainly not "team MVP" good, despite some of the sillier hype from the Kessel era. But his production hasn't cratered without his superstar wingman. In fact, it's improved slightly, and he's on pace for the most productive season of his career this year.

Maybe he's benefitting from the Leafs finally having some depth at center. Maybe he's embracing his role as the "dad figure" on one of the league's youngest rosters. Or maybe he was just better than I thought he was all along.

John Klingberg

What I thought I knew: He's easily one of the best young offensive defensemen in the league.

Where I'm at now: Pretty much the same place. Which is why what's going on in Dallas right now is so hard to figure out.

Last month, Lindy Ruff made Klingberg a healthy scratch, and everyone went "What?" Then we found out that Klingberg had missed a team meeting, so fair enough — the rules apply to everyone. But then last week he was scratched again, this time for performance reasons.

And sure enough, he hasn't been great this year. He's on pace for the worst offensive totals of his career, and he's getting creamed on possession, where he'd previously been very solid. Sure, maybe nobody would look good in front of that Dallas goaltending. And Ruff is carrying eight defenseman, which makes his decisions tougher. But Klingberg really has looked off this year, and with a 98.5 PDO, this isn't all about bad luck and shaky percentages. Something's wrong.

We're talking about a guy who finished sixth in the Norris voting last year, in just his second NHL season. It looked like the Stars had themselves a poor man's Erik Karlsson in the making. Maybe they still do. But this season has turned a sure thing into a major question mark.

Kris Russell

What I thought I knew: No clue. None. He seems like a good guy. Smallish, and without any especially flashy numbers, but he always seemed like a nice underdog story who'd overachieved over the years on a long path towards earning some respect. I usually like those kind of stories.

But over the last few years, Russell has somehow morphed into the poster child for the debate between analytics and old school. And you're not allowed to stake out a middle ground. You have to either think he's the second coming of Scott Stevens, willing his team to victory by sheer force of heart, or you have to think he's hot garbage. Those are your only two options. And you better choose quickly, because as soon as his name get mentioned, everybody is going to start yelling.

Where I'm at now: SO MUCH YELLING!

Honestly, I have no idea. When Russell hit free agency this summer, I thought the big numbers being thrown around were a little ridiculous. So did the league, apparently, since he had to settle for a one-year deal with the Oilers. That seemed like a good fit, and you figured Russell could settle in, put together a decent season, and take another shot at a big UFA payday next year.

No such luck. No, apparently we all have to keep fighting the Great Kris Russell Battle until the end of time. Is he good? Bad? What position does he even play? Nobody remembers.

We have always been at war with Kris Russell. Now pick a side and go yell at somebody about it.

Sean McIndoe has been writing about the NHL since 2008, most recently for ESPN and Grantland. He spends most of his time making jokes on twitter, where you may know him as @downgoesbrown. He appears weekly on TheHockeyNews.com.